On the operating table, my daughter's face was pale, and her body was filled with tubes, causing my eyes to ache with sadness.
The doctor gently pulled me and said, "Seize the opportunity while she is sober!"
Renee struggled to raise her eyelids, and her eyes sparkled with recognition upon seeing me. Yet, as her gaze shifted to the vacant area behind me, the glow in her eyes slowly dimmed.
I understood her disappointment.
She yearned for maternal love time and time again, only to be disappointed time and time again. In the end, she still couldn't see Yasmin.
"Dad..." she called me.
"Don't be afraid, Renee! Your mom is on her way! The doctor will cure you!"
Renee shook her head weakly, tears slowly streaming down her face.
I held her hand firmly as if trying to cling onto her swiftly slipping away life, yet my words failed to ignite any glimmer of hope within her.
Her bright eyes were dull and lifeless.
After the police rescued her from the human traffickers, Renee was like a different person.
At just eight years old, Renee could decipher people's expressions and was acutely attuned to their thoughts.
At this moment, Renee, with a pale face, tried to comfort me like an adult, "Daddy... Mommy won't come...If it hadn't been for picking me up, Grandpa and Grandma wouldn't have had an accident. I am... a jinx..."
I turned my head, quickly wiped away my tears, and smiled to comfort Renee, "Nonsense! My Renee is a lucky star. You will live to be a hundred years old!"
But Renee's expression told me that she didn't believe it.
The image of the car accident was etched in my memory, and even the pungent scent of disinfectant in the operating room could not mask the overpowering odor of blood that lingered on Renee.
"How much pain she must be in!" I thought.
"Daddy... you should divorce Mommy, I'm leaving... you don't have to sacrifice yourself for me... gamblers won't... change! Grandpa and grandma came to pick me up... back to the hometown..." Renee told me the last truth she had never revealed, then closed her eyes.
I scarcely had the moment to process the shock and fury coursing through me before the sorrow in my chest swiftly permeated every inch of my being.
The emergency physician who attended to my mother-in-law sadly informed me at that moment that there was nothing more they could do to save her.